Mars Express and Beagle 2

[Wetzel]

The BBC reports that "Scientists have failed to pick up an expected signal from British-built spacecraft Beagle 2 telling them it has landed safely on Mars".

Washington Post article here

Hopefully they will hear from it today. "Beagle's initial electronic message -- notes composed by the British rock band Blur -- was not heard."

However, it appears that the orbiter has succesfully made it into orbit.


Wetzel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
9 days...Good Luck Dave.

[geo]

That's too bad

[IMDWalrus]

It stinks that it's not going as planned, but at least the mission isn't completely scrapped yet...

[KenWittlief]

this is what happens when you dont follow tradition.

they should have stuck with Chuck Berry! :^)

[Trashed20]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

Hopefully they will hear from it today. "Beagle's initial electronic message -- notes composed by the British rock band Blur -- was not heard."

Well, since they didn't hear song #1 maybe they'll hear Song #2. HAHAHAHAHAH......sorry. not that funny, but i had too

[Wetzel]

They didn't hear Song #2 either...
Here's hoping for Song #3.


Wetzel

[dlavery]

The third and final attempt for the day to reach the Beagle 2 lander has just concluded. The Jodrell Bank Observatory was again unable to detect any carrier signal from Beagle 2. Two Mars Odyssey overflights of the landing site earlier in the day were also unsuccessful at detecting the lander.

Efforts for tomorrow (Saturday) will include another pass by Odyssey at 1:15-2:00 AM EST, a Jodrell Bank pass at 10:00 AM EST, and a late-evening attempt by the Stanford antenna complex to detect carrier signal from the lander.

Sunday efforts will include two more Odyssey passes, and one Jodrell Bank attempt.

If necessary, efforts will continue with one Odyssey pass per day to attempt to detect Beagle 2 until Odyssey is re-tasked to support Mars Exploration Rover landing operations on January 3.

Meanwhile, the Mars Express orbiter continues to fare well. The next event will be a plane change maneuver at 3:00 AM EST on Tuesday to begin the process of moving the spacecraft into the final science orbit.

- dave

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8 days to go!!!

[KenWittlief]

Its ironic that the mission was suppose to be looking for signs of life on Mars

and now the project team is desparately looking for signs of life from Beagle 2.

If my artistic talents were better I would draw a cartoon of Beagle 2 sitting on the surface of mars, next to the oblisque from 2001, being bashed into pieces by martian monkeys wielding large bones. :c)

BTW - these failures really make you appreciate what it takes to pull off a mission like this (the sucessful ones)

When they were not able to repeat the Wright brothers flight earlier this month, inspite of modern aerospace knowledge, millions of dollars of funding, and a hundred years of experience over the Wright brothers

for me, it made me appreciate all the more the genius of those two bicycle mechanics, making their last ditch effort before going home to ohio for the winter - Orville and Wilber had the Wright Stuff :^)

never take anything for granted!

[Madison]

Maybe it's the exhibit we debuted at work dealing with space that's made the difference, but lately, I've been excited about space and spaceflight again.

[IMDWalrus]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

Maybe it's the exhibit we debuted at work dealing with space that's made the difference, but lately, I've been excited about space and spaceflight again.

Me too, oddly enough. I was thinking that it was just that I've become friends with a few people who are really into NASA, but it looks like it's not just happening to me...

Wouldn't it be cool if interest in the space program went up again?

[Adam Y.]

When they were not able to repeat the Wright brothers flight earlier this month, inspite of modern aerospace knowledge, millions of dollars of funding, and a hundred years of experience over the Wright brothers

Actually the planes worked. Mother nature just was not cooperating. The plane needs an massive amount of headwind to fly but unfortunately the wind was shifting all over the place. Those guys are ingenious. Their assitant maganed to make their own gasoline engine with steam powered tools. The accuracy rivaled todays automated tools.

[KenWittlief]

I give the reproduction team that built the flyer for this years anniversary a lot of credit- but they had a very difficult time flying it. I saw a program documenting what they did on a cable channel. They few it a few weeks before the big day, and only went about 90 feet, shorter that Orvilles' first flight.

they tried to fly it again and it stalled on takeoff, nosed into the ground causing a significant amount of damage - I dont know if they have yet successfully flow the replica plane as far as Orville did on his longest flight.

There were many aspects of the original plane that were not recorded - we dont know how tightly it was strung (the guy wires), how ridgid or flexible the plane was - its the small details that make a machine like that work or fail

the Wright brothers worked it all out with a very hands-on approach - something you cant get from a computer simulation

Orville flew by the seat of his pants - those pants should be in the Smithsonian next to the plane :c)

[Adam Y.]

There were many aspects of the original plane that were not recorded - we dont know how tightly it was strung (the guy wires), how ridgid or flexible the plane was - its the small details that make a machine like that work or fail

Well the original plane still exists. Unfortunately the plane was crashed before they got it into the museum. So it is only a rendidition of what they thought the plane should have looked like. Those guys were amazing. They designed there wings after playing around with a macaroni box in their bicycle shop.

I give the reproduction team that built the flyer for this years anniversary a lot of credit- but they had a very difficult time flying it.

Actually there was more than one reproduction plane. One ended up crashing because the plane was heading for a forest and there was no brakes on the plane.

[Wetzel]

Current status

28-Dec-2003
21:50 GMT

No signal received via Odyssey.
.....................

28-Dec-2003
01:20 GMT

No signal received by the Stanford University telescope but equipment was not operating at its highest level of performance.

January 4th is when Mars Express will be in positition to listen for Beagle. Great hope remains until then.

Communication Strategy of the Beagle 2 "Think Tank"

Wetzel